electionstracker

Germany 1972 federal election

Final results from ParlGov, read : Social Democratic Party of Germany won 230 of 496 seats with 45.8% of the vote; 91.1% of registered voters cast a ballot, up 4.4 points on 1969.

Result

Seats and votes by party

PartySeats± seats%± pointsVotes
Social Democratic Party of Germany230+645.8+3.117,175,169
Christian Democratic Union of Germany177−1635.2−1.413,190,837
Christian Social Union in Bavaria48−19.7+0.23,615,183
Free Democratic Party41+118.4+2.63,129,982
National Democratic Party000.6−3.7207,465

± is the change against the Germany 1969 federal election, party by party.

Votes by party
  • Social Democratic Party of Germany 17,175,169
  • Christian Democratic Union of Germany 13,190,837
  • Christian Social Union in Bavaria 3,615,183
  • Free Democratic Party 3,129,982
  • National Democratic Party 207,465

ParlGov lists parties with at least 1 percent of the vote or 2 seats, so the rows do not add up to the valid votes. How we read it.

Share of the vote

Turnout

91.1% of the 41,446,302 registered voters cast a ballot (37,761,589 ballots), up 4.4 points on 1969. 37,459,750 of them were valid votes. The highest turnout of this kind in our data, which begins in 1949. How turnout is counted.

Votes and seats

  • Social Democratic Party of Germany45.8% of votes46.4% of seats
  • CDU/CSU44.9% of votes45.4% of seats
  • Free Democratic Party8.4% of votes8.3% of seats
Each party's share of the vote (outlined) and of the seats (filled)

The Gallagher index of disproportionality is 0.7 (0 when seats follow votes exactly); the effective number of parties is 2.4 by votes and 2.3 by seats; Social Democratic Party of Germany led CDU/CSU by 0.9 points of the vote. How these are computed.

Sources and licence

Sources and licence

Our text and compilation: CC BY 4.0. How to reuse and cite this page.